Uzbek Crackdown
Fuels Instability
In Central Asia

As They Bury Their Fallen,
Andijan Residents Say
Innocents Were Killed

By

Philip Shishkin Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Updated May 19, 2005 12:01 a.m. ET

ANDIJAN, Uzbekistan &ndash; A day after he turned 16, Yogdorbek Mamajonov walked out of his house, picked up a friend and went to buy meat for a festive meal his mother wanted to cook. Many sleepless hours later, she received Yogdorbek's corpse, with five bullet holes in it. The friend was dead too.

The residents of the Central Asian town of Andijan -- where Muslim calls to prayer reverberate across winding alleys and squat white-washed homes -- are still trying to comprehend a horrific sequence of events that started...